1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to an apparatus for preventing neck injury for use in a vehicle seat and, more particularly, to an apparatus for preventing neck injury for use in a vehicle seat, in which a seat back moves in a forward upward direction by rotating backwards between a front connection link and a rear connection link in the event of a vehicle rear-end collision, thereby maintaining the stable posture of an occupant and reducing an injury to the neck of the occupant.
2. Description of Related Art
In the event of a vehicle rear-end collision, the occupant of a vehicle generally hits a seat back due to inertia. In this case, the cushion of the seat back must absorb all of the shock, and thus it leaves much to be desired from the viewpoint of relieving the shock. When the shock is too strong, there is a high possibility of causing an injury to the neck of the occupant.
For this reason, a recliner apparatus for adjusting the angle of a seat back or relieving the shock by improving the structure of a recliner has been proposed.
As shown in FIG. 6A, such a recliner apparatus includes an outer side plate 13 that is coupled between a recliner body 10 and a recliner bracket 11 and having a pivot point 12 at an upper end thereof, a folding bracket 16 that is disposed between the outer side plate 13 and the recliner body 10 and is coupled to the pivot point 12, and a front link arm (not shown) and a rear link arm 20 that are disposed between the folding bracket 16 and the recliner body 10 and make link motion possible in such a manner that one side thereof is connected through a pivot shaft 18 and simultaneously the other side thereof is coupled to a lower portion of the recliner bracket 11.
For example, when the body of the occupant hits the seat back and thus applies a load to the seat back in the event of the rear-end collision of the vehicle, the rear link arm 20 rotates about the pivot shaft 18, and thereby the entire seat back including the recliner body 10 and the recliner bracket 11 can be horizontally displaced in a rearward direction. Thus, as shown in FIG. 6C, both the recliner body 10 and the recliner bracket 11 can be rotated in a rearward direction adopting the pivot shaft 18 as a central point of rotation in mutually linked combination with the front link arm (not shown). That is, the seat back is pushed in a rearward diction as soon as the rear-end collision occurs, and thus the head of the occupant is pulled back.
In this seat back of the related art, in the event of the rear-end collision of the vehicle, a posture of the occupant who moves forward in the vehicle cannot be kept safe due to the inertial force, and an occupant who is in a second row seat may be injured by a rearward-moving behavior of a seat back of the first row when the first row seat back moves backward.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.